Alfred Lambremont Webre's odyssey into the realm of life in the vast Universe surrounding planet Earth is indeed a fascinating journey if you read it with an open mind. He postulates a Universe that includes many planets sustaining life more advanced than our own – all subject to universal governance based on the rule of law.

Earth, he suggests, is an exception. Rather than being the center of the Universe, as our ancestors believed, we are the black sheep of the interplanetary community. We have been "quarantined" and isolated from the "highly organized, interplanetary, inter-galactic multidimensional society," presumably because our culture has been strongly influenced by rogue planetary leadership personified in the story of the Garden of Eden.

To end the "quarantine," Earthlings must advance morally and spiritually, while re-establishing connection with inter-planetary society. Until recently, we didn't have the technology to do the latter, but increasingly we do. Meanwhile, visits from our extra-planetary neighbours present opportunities for peaceful communication and collaboration.

Webre posits that some UFOs are natural phenomena, while some are top-secret military aircraft, but that others are quite real. He maintains that knowledge of their existence is being suppressed by military intelligence organizations in the five English-speaking countries known as the so-called "Echelon" group – the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

For me, this is the least credible of the author's assertions. I strongly suspect that the US military holds information it has not revealed, but I very much doubt that it has shared this knowledge with its intelligence partners – certainly not Canada. The US only shares information with other governments when it is in its own best interests to do so.

Webre states that the alleged disinformation campaign about UFOs is due to the close relationship between the military and industry, the so-called “military-industrial complex” that President Dwight David Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address. They are the chief beneficiaries of the oil economy. Tapping into the knowledge of the Universe would ultimately lead us to higher forms of energy that would be ecologically sustainable, but that would make the oil economy irrelevant.

God-fearing people will be relieved to know that there is nothing in Webre's thesis, despite the considerable mind-stretch, that denies their fundamental beliefs. If there were, I would not be a party to it. Webre states, "Reunion with Universe civilizations will bring a closer relationship with God. The most advanced scientific reality in all creation is that God is Source."

To turn us in the direction of re-unification with the rest of creation the author is proposing a "Decade of Contact" – an "era of openness, public hearings, publicly funded research, and education about extraterrestrial reality.” That could be just the antidote the world needs to end its greed-driven, power-centered madness. (page vi, EXOPOLITICS)